we owe it to ourselves to try
by BookkeeperThe
Summary: Gabriel just kind of . . . stays. No one's really complaining, especially not Sam. Of course, nothing can ever be that simple. [Sabriel, background Destiel, future fic. Sequel to we have time left to be lazy, but can be read alone.]


**Notes: sequel to a new life (just another place to die) and we have time left to be lazy – which I've decided are in the same universe – but all you really need to know is that the Winchesters and Cas retired to Lawrence, Michigan after season seven, and twelve years later Gabriel turned up, de-aged, and Sam invited him to stay while he recovered. **

**Title comes from the fun. song Light a Roman Candle with Me.**

**Warnings: alcohol, implications of past rape. **

**.**

One morning a few days after Let's Spoon, Sam walked down the stairs to find Gabriel back in his adult form, sucking on a lollipop in an extremely distracting manner.

"Morning, Sammy," Gabriel greeted cheerfully.

"Uh . . . morning," Sam managed to get out, eyes still on the angel's lips as the red candy disappeared between them. They curled into a smirk around the paper stick. Sam intended to ask whether this meant that Gabriel would be leaving soon, but the angel drew the lollipop out of his mouth, tongue lingering on it for longer than necessary, and Sam suddenly forgot what he was about to say.

.

Dean was woken by a muffled sound. It was weirdly familiar, though he couldn't quite place it, like a song he hadn't heard in years. He blearily made his way down the stairs and pushed open the kitchen door.

The first thing he registered was that Gabriel was an adult again, and he opened his mouth to tell him that he could get the hell out of their house now, thanks.

The second thing he registered is what the sound was. Sam was laughing, laughing pure and uninhibited, laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes.

Dean closed his mouth.

Gabriel stayed.

.

Gabriel popped in on the bookstore whenever it was slow and leaned against the counter telling ridiculous stories about famous authors until Sam was laughing so much that his boss got annoyed. Gabriel touched Sam more than anyone had in . . . ever, experimentally at first while he figured out the rules (stay away from his neck, don't make him feel restrained, make sure he saw it coming) and then shamelessly, with thinner and thinner excuses each time until he gave up all pretense. Gabriel engaged in completely extraneous tongue-gymnastics every time he ate something where Sam could see him.

Gabriel was, in short, not subtle in the least.

Still, he didn't _quite_ begin anything. His conversation was always casual, his touches always brief, their meals always shared with Cas or Dean or both. He was laying the bait, trying to tempt Sam into making the first move. Were it anyone else Sam might have called it a power play. Seeing as it was Gabriel, he thought probably another word was more appropriate.

That was why, when he finally gave in a kissed the angel (on a Saturday night when he was a little drunk and Dean and Cas are at the bar and Gabriel's eyes were shining just _so_ as he made fun of the latest batch of contestants on _Sugar Dome_), he pulled away a moment later.

"C'mon, Sam," said Gabriel, looking pleased and not at all surprised. "If you're gonna kiss a guy, do it right." He leaned forward to reinitiate the kiss, but Sam stopped him with a hand on his chest. The gesture would have been useless, of course, if Gabriel had insisted, but he didn't, and Sam breathed.

"I need –" Sam stopped, swallowed, because he had come to terms with his losses but he wasn't sure he could handle losing anything else, and if this wasn't what he hoped it was he wasn't going to start something which would only break him all over again. (He worried that he already had.) "I need you to tell me that this isn't a game."

"Of course it's a game, Sammy-kins," Gabriel replied with a grin. Sam recoiled, heart sinking and stomach turning even as his mind spun with competing floods of _stupid, stupid, stupid, he's a __**Trickster**_and _he's an __**angel**__, an __**archangel**__, why would he want __**you**__?_

Gabriel stopped him with a touch – careful, soft, a brush against his shoulder which requested that he stay but didn't demand it. It was that gentleness that made Sam meet Gabriel's eyes, amber and softer than Sam had ever seen them. When Gabriel spoke his tone was soft, as well, carrying a promise beneath his almost flippant words.

"I play for keeps."

For the first time in years, Sam allowed himself to be drawn into a kiss. Gabriel tasted like artificial cherry flavor, and sugar, and hope.

.

The first night they shared a bed Sam woke up in a cold sweat, breath coming in panicked gasps, and for long moments he couldn't remember where he was, when he was, who was curled around him, was it dark or was he blind –?

Gabriel flicked on a light with a snap of his fingers. Sam flinched away from him, letting out a sound which was very nearly a whimper.

"Whoa, Samsquatch, easy," said Gabriel, looking startled. He pulled back, giving Sam space, watching with a concerned frown as the hunter (_ex-hunter, __**ex**__-hunter, why did he feel like a hunter again?_) ran a hand over his face and struggled to control his breathing. "Bad dream?" Gabriel asked at last, when Sam had calmed somewhat.

"Yeah," Sam replied. "Yeah, I – I guess. Can't remember." It was only half a lie. He couldn't remember the details, but he remembered soft words in his ear and icy fingers on his scalp and a forked tongue on his neck . . . he shuddered.

"This a regular thing for you?" Gabriel asked, eyes piercing, as if he was trying to work something out.

"No. I mean, yeah, but not so often these days. Once a week, maybe." And usually not this bad, definitely shouldn't be this bad after being worn out by a night of mind-blowing sex, but he didn't mention that. It hadn't been long ago he was lucky to get any sleep at all, and not _too_ long before that that he had been experiencing that sort of thing while he was awake. He wasn't going to complain about one bad night. "I'm fine. Sorry. It's nothing."

.

It wasn't nothing.

Sam had another nightmare the next night, and the one after that, and they only got worse. Gabriel tried waking him up, letting him wake on his own, stroking his hair, speaking to him soothingly in English and Enochian and Latin and Old Norse and anything else he could think of, tiring him out with sex, refusing sex, leaving the light on – nothing worked. Within two weeks it was as if Sam had regressed twelve years, sleeping only sporadically and shooting out of bed two hours later to dry-heave over the toilet.

His body was quick to remind him that he was not as young as he used to be, and this time around he was not quite as good at masking his sleep deprivation.

Dean had gone from teasing him about finally getting laid to questioning him sharply about any sort of cursed object or other supernatural influence he might have come in contact with to questioning Cas just as sharply about whether whatever he did to fix his head way back when could be wearing off.

Meanwhile Sam's lack of sleep was affecting his work at the bookstore, and his boss had gone from issuing irritated rebukes about prioritizing his love life to shooting him worried frowns when she thought he wasn't looking to asking him to stay one night after closing.

"I'm sorry," Sam apologized, sinking gratefully into the seat she offered him even as trepidation gnawed at his stomach. They didn't exactly _need_ the money that came with this job, but it was the only wiggle room their budget had, and he liked the job and liked Audrey and liked having someplace to go and something to do. "I know I haven't been –"

"I'm not firing you, Sam," Audrey said, cutting him off. Her normally strict, no-nonsense expression and tone softened. "I'm worried about you."

"You – you don't have to be," Sam said, rubbing a hand over his eyes, embarrassed and frustrated. This was stupid; this was so, so stupid, he had thought he was _done_ with this shit. _Should've known better it's never done never over_ – "It's nothing. Can't sleep. Probably some sort of mid-life crisis or something." And wouldn't Dean just love to hear that, he thought wryly. His brother still liked to pretend that he had stopped aging at thirty, except when he was using 'old age' as an excuse to get out of something.

"Sam." Audrey clearly wasn't buying it, not that he had really expected she would, though he had kind of hoped she would pretend to. He had no such luck, however, and she leaned forward to put a hand on his knee in an uncharacteristic gesture of affection. "I know that this is the first relationship you've had in a long time," she said, sounding as if she was choosing her words very carefully. "And I know that Gabriel has a very strong personality, but no matter how much attention he pays you, you don't owe it to anyone to let them –"

"_What_?!" Sam sputtered when he caught on to what she was talking about. "No! Gabriel's not – it's not like that. I'm not – he's not – no."

She withdrew her hand, but continued to look at him with sad eyes.

"Just because he's not hitting you doesn't mean that it's not abuse," she said gently, and Sam sort of wished that this made the list of the top ten most surreal moments in his life. His life being what it was (or had been), it didn't even come close, but he still gave an incredulous burst of laughter.

"Look, I appreciate your concern, but that's not what's going on here. Believe me, I know what an unhealthy relationship looks –" He stopped. Something cold trickled into his stomach.

"Sam?" Audrey questioned cautiously.

"I have to go," he said, rising, ignoring her call for him to wait and stepping out onto the empty street. He began to walk almost without realizing it, his mind filled with a desperate chant of _no, no, no, __**no.**_

Beneath it, he could almost hear someone laughing.

.

Gabriel found Sam in a bar. Not the fairly decent one that Dean and Castiel frequented in Lawrence, but a seedy, rundown shack about a mile out of town. The kid must have walked there, or maybe he ran, because it had been less than an hour since his boss called and he was already completely smashed.

"I found him; he's fine," he told Dean through the phone which he had just called into existence. He hung up and let the phone dissolve again without another word. If Sam needed Dean, Gabriel would call him back. If he didn't, Dean could threaten to murder him all he wanted later.

"Gave us a bit of a scare there, kiddo," Gabriel said, sliding onto the stool beside Sam. "Your brother's about to go into conniptions."

"S'ry," Sam slurred. "Figured it out," he added.

"Want to share with class?" Gabriel prompted. No need to ask what 'it' was. Everyone in that house had been losing sleep (figuratively, in the angels' cases) over Sam's loss of sleep for the past week, Gabriel for longer.

Sam raised his half-empty glass to his lips. Gabriel snapped his fingers and the whiskey turned to apple juice. Sam made an annoyed sound and set it back down.

"'M broken," he said, as if that explained everything.

"We all are, kid," Gabriel replied, not bothering to argue with what was a pretty self-evident statement. In his experience, just about everyone was cracked in one way or another, and the Winchesters had been shattered more times than anyone should have been able to survive.

"No, but –" Sam frowned, as if struggling to remember his point. "You're an archangel."

"Are we just stating facts now?" Gabriel asked sarcastically. "I can play too, you know. This place is a dump. Your hair is stupid."

Sam narrowed his eyes. It made him look way more adorable than any forty-year-old man had a right to be.

". . . you like my hair," he concluded after a long moment. Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"It might be growing on me," he conceded. "That's not really the point here, Sam-I-Am. What did you figure out?"

Sam sighed heavily, instantly morose again.

"I's _him_," he said, his left hand tightening on his glass while he gestured at his own temple with the other. "Him an' you. Know it's different when 'm awake, but feels the same when 'm sleeping. Not in my head anymore 'cause Cas took 'im away, but he left these – these _marks_ everywhere an' I don't know where they all are an' sometimes they just sorta – sorta flare up –

"Sam," Gabriel tried to cut in, cold horror creeping through him, making his vessel's stomach turn and his Grace shiver and recoil. He'd resigned himself days ago to the fact that it had something to do with him, started consciously reining in his Grace and looking for what could be a problem between him and Sam which wasn't one between Castiel and Dean, but he hadn't realized, he should have realized –

"—an' you're not even _like _him, not even a li'l bit, he liked to be like Dean an' sometimes even Cas an' then Cas was like him when he went inside and broke me open an' you were kinda like him when you made Dean die over an' over again but not really an' that was before and now you're not like him ever –"

"Sam," Gabriel repeated, trying to quell the drunken flow of words which felt like it was breaking _him_ open. It was intentional, how very _un_like his brother he was with Sam, how careful he was to give him a choice, to never use his superior strength or his supernatural persuasiveness to push him any faster than he wanted to go. It was the only reason he wasn't kissing him right now just to make him stop talking.

"—and now I've gone an' ruined it all 'cause I'm a royal _fuck-up_ an' I can't tell the difference betw'n you an' fuckin' _Lucifer_—"

"Sam!"

Sam finally shut up, staring at him with teary eyes, obviously waiting for something. Condemnation, Gabriel thought, and felt sick. Over a decade later and the kid – the man – was still walking around half-expecting to be tossed back into Hell.

Sam was too broken to pull himself together and too drunk to get subtext. None of Gabriel's usual approaches would work here. He was kind of starting to wish he hadn't hung up on Dean so quickly.

_Ah, fuck. _

_Here goes nothing. _

"You're not a fuck-up," Gabriel told him. "You're _fucked_ up, but that's not your fault."

Sam made a sound which was definitely a sob. Strike one, Gabe.

"And it's kind of melodramatic to say you've ruined _everything._ I mean, you were fine until we started sleeping together, and the sex itself is _great_, so if I just don't stay in your bed afterwards—"

Sam gave a low moan and buried his face in his hands. Strike two. One more and he was out, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what that meant in this case.

Sam was muttering into his hands. Gabriel leaned closer to hear what he was saying.

". . . stupid, stupid, stupid . . ."

"You're right, I am stupid." He said it flippantly, but sitting here helplessly as the man he – as Sam Winchester shook and wept, it had never felt more true. "Maybe you could help me out?"

Sam made a choked sound and didn't look up, but he ceased his muttering and spoke more clearly.

"No, 'm stupid. It's stupid. Been years an' years an' years and I shouldn't want – 'm fine. It's fine. Been fine."

Gabriel frowned.

"Shouldn't want what?"

Sam shook his head vigorously.

"Nothin', nothin', i's stupid . . ."

Gabriel's frowned deepened as his mind sped through the possibilities.

"You don't want to sleep alone," he deduced at last, his heart tearing a little bit more. _Oh, Samsquatch. _Years and years and years since anyone held him, since he felt another heartbeat against his, and he had convinced himself that he shouldn't want it. Spent all that time telling himself that it was enough to have his brother and Castiel two doors away, telling everyone that he was fine, fine, fine, repeated like a mantra until he forgot that it was a lie.

Or maybe not a lie, Gabriel modified, remembering Sam's easy smile and relaxed calm while they ate frozen yogurt a couple months ago. Just not exactly the truth.

Loneliness did things to a person.

Gabriel knew that better than most.

"C'mere." He wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders, giving him plenty of time to pull away if he wanted to, but Sam leaned into the embrace – fell into it, more like, and Gabriel would have fallen as well if he were human. As it was, he just hefted Sam to his feet, tossed some bills which hadn't existed a minute ago onto the bar, and began the slow but steady trek to the door.

Sam was still crying, judging by the growing dampness on Gabriel's neck. He murmured something unintelligible against the angel's skin and flopped a little, nearly throwing them off balance.

"Easy there, Samster. I've got you. Just gotta get out of sight before I zap us back home. Don't want to spook the locals."

Sam didn't respond. Gabriel wasn't even sure if he was still registering the outside world, but he kept talking anyway.

"We'll make it work. Re-condition some of those responses, huh, Sammy-boy? That bed's too big for one."

Gabriel paused for a moment outside of the bar. It was spring, but the air was cool with one last breath of winter. Still, it wouldn't last. Summer would be there soon enough.

Sam's tears had stopped, his breathing deep and even. Gabriel smiled, and snapped his fingers.

They were going home.


End file.
